:Hitler was never [[President of Germany]]; he abolished the office and absorbed its powers into the new rank of [[Führer]]. <strike>No-one else has ever been both at the same time (or even not at the same time).</strike> <small>except possibly...</small>[[User:FiggyBee|FiggyBee]] ([[User talk:FiggyBee|talk]]) 20:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
:Hitler was never [[President of Germany]]; he abolished the office and absorbed its powers into the new rank of [[Führer]]. <strike>No-one else has ever been both at the same time (or even not at the same time).</strike> <small>except possibly...</small>[[User:FiggyBee|FiggyBee]] ([[User talk:FiggyBee|talk]]) 20:38, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
::I don't think that's entirely correct. In any case, [[Friedrich Ebert]] was Germany's Chancellor, after the fall of the Kaiser, although he never used the title. He was then elected President (but did not hold both positions at the same time). - [[User:Jarry1250|Jarry1250]] <sup>[''[[Special:Contributions/Jarry1250|Humorous]]? [[User_talk:Jarry1250|Discuss]].'']</sup> 20:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
::I don't think that's entirely correct. In any case, [[Friedrich Ebert]] was Germany's Chancellor, after the fall of the Kaiser, although he never used the title. He was then elected President (but did not hold both positions at the same time). - [[User:Jarry1250|Jarry1250]] <sup>[''[[Special:Contributions/Jarry1250|Humorous]]? [[User_talk:Jarry1250|Discuss]].'']</sup> 20:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
== Searching for a quote on writing ==
Trying to remember the source (and content!) of a quote. I think it was from Annie Dillard?
The gist of it, or my recollection of it, not even close to the actual quote: Don't save up your "good ideas" for fear you'll run out. Use them and you'll get more. Store them for later, and when you try to retrieve them, they'll be gone. [[Special:Contributions/198.161.238.18|198.161.238.18]] ([[User talk:198.161.238.18|talk]]) 20:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)
Revision as of 20:53, 25 November 2009
Welcome to the humanities section of the Wikipedia reference desk.
The best answers address the question directly, and back up facts with wikilinks and links to sources. Do not edit others' comments and do not give any medical or legal advice.
Are Pakistan and India the only countries with the most Ismaili Nizari population? In Pakistan, do they speak Sindh and in India, do they speak Gujarati? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.14.119.221 (talk) 00:51, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What do you mean 'the only countries with the most Ismaili Nizari population'? I don't believe Pakistan or India have a majority or plurality Nizari Ismaili population. If you mean the countries where a large number of Nizari life, then it may depend on your cut off point. For example if country X has 8 million, country Y has 5 million and country Z has 3 million, do you count all 3 as 'countries with the most Ismaili Nizari population' or only two and why? In any case, our article Nizari#Demographics has a demographics section which lists several countries. It doesn't include numbers but "The largest group of Ismailis reside in Central Asia (Tajikistan, Afghanistan) mainly in rural areas. ...... South Asian Ismailis compose the largest ethnic group particularly Pakistan, followed by India and Bangladesh." which is somewhat confusing to me but appears to suggest the Nizari Ismaili population in Central Asia is larger then in South Asia Nil Einne (talk) 08:25, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Language of Wine Reviews
Wine reviewers would always describe the "flavour" of the wine as a combination of seemingly random foods (e.g. "...the wine expresses beautiful, ripe dark fruit, mainly plum and blackberry; notes of gaminess, smoke, spice and even a slight vegetal note weave through the fruity backdrop..."). Is the flavouring quote-on-quote "all in the reviewer's head", or did some chemical reaction in the fermenting process produce the chemicals that mimic the flavours, or do the winemakers barrel the grapes along with other fruits and spices? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 142.151.135.122 (talk) 00:56, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's largely chemical reactions. It does sound like it's entirely made up to the uninitiated, but with practice it is possible to detect particcular tastes and aromas which have the named qualities. As with everything to do with subtle preceptions, it is open to some interpretation, but the language is consistent enough for it to all make sense to those with expedrience in the field of wine tasting. Mind you, it's alsos probably one of the simplest of things to bluff, since very few experts will be on hand to argue a taste point, so take any opinions of experts with a grain of salt! Grutness...wha?01:26, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As an example, I've heard that some connoisseurs have been known to discuss the wine in terms of cat urine - not because the wine tastes or smells like it, but because feline piss is a very unique smell and not easily replicable by other products. Remember, the only opinion that matters is your own! ~ Amory(u • t • c)03:14, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think it's largely horse shite, but who knows. You could run a test on the internal consistency of their appellations but what would the point be? They are not about to give up their tomfoolery just because you can prove that it is only that. Pretension knows no dignity. Vranak (talk) 14:35, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I will add that as a bit of a cigar enthusiast,I know the same type of extremely detailed descriptive reviews also exist in the smoking world as well. While one may light up and just taste tobaccoo smoke, another will describe it as "leathery, nutty and earthy, with hints of chocolate and a coffee after taste. :-) cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 17:52, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but are they likely to make comparison between the tobacco and fecal matter? (Although one well-known children's book describes goat dropping being clandestinely placed in a man's pipe. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 19:06, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Deleted Yoga Articles?
Are there any yoga articles that have been deleted? No bios. I came across an article like 3 years ago: it had like 5 warning tags, a very long article; sections headings (?) were bolded instead of headlined.
Some of the tags claimed that it was talking about indian witchcraft. A lot of the content seemed wiccan, "Indian" style. It was a category article (talking about sub-disciplines).
Hi, in the early days of the Irish state, after 1922, a prominent black American spokeperson for black rights came to the new Irish state to try gathering support and financial aid from his similarly, but now recovering, downtrodden brothers in Ireland. When he came he tred soapbaxing around Dublin. What found was a land of peasants in rags who probably didn't understand too much of what he was preaching about so he soon gave up the idea of getting too much support from people he thought were worse off than himself. Nevertheless he made friends here (Ireland) and returned a few times for one reason or another. He was a black man with good education and therefore a capable spokesperson of Black Rights and embroiled in controversy and danger for that. I may have a few of those details wrong. I cannot recall the name of that particular person. Long before Martin Luther King or Malcolm X. Does this ring the bell for anyone? Surely there was not a lot of people fitting this description, thanks for any help. ~ R.T.G12:11, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Many black intellectuals of the era looked to Ireland for inspiration, like Garvey, Cyril Briggs, and Claude McKay, though probably few (if any) would have thought that Irishmen were generally worse off than blacks. I'm not sure who among them actually visited Ireland, but if you follow the links from their articles, and check out Harlem Renaissance too, maybe you'll find the guy you're thinking of. —KevinMyers14:54, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Marcus Garvey is very like it but still I do not recall and these guys are not mentioned for any Irish relations. If it is on wiki though I think these artices are great collection of content portal so thanks for these. ~ R.T.G16:42, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly Paul Robeson? He is well known for visiting Wales in the late 1920's and expressing solidarity with and support for poor Welsh miners, so visits to Ireland in the same era seem not implausible. 87.81.230.195 (talk) 18:29, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A definite match for the political values and international activity, 87.81.., thanks again. I must just admit to Kevin Myers on reflection that that is what sprouts from seeds of doubt. ~ R.T.G21:37, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
General knowledge question on capital city
which can be city that is
1. sprawling, modern
2. One country's newest capital
3. known for its (going-green) main square
Founded by a controversial religious movement, it was finally closed because of debilitating diseases that ravished the population, and by years of governmental neglect.
Link between St.Louis IX's 5th son and the Royal Dutch family De Graeff
I'm trying to find the link from the 5th son of St. Louis of France to the marraige with the granddaughter or daugher of King Willim of Holland. Is anyone able to help me with this?
The only Kingdom of Holland was a short-lived Napoleonic puppet state which existed for 4 short years. There was a County of Holland which existed from the 1000's until Napoleon ended it and replaced it with his puppet Kingdom. There is also the modern Kingdom of the Netherlands which has only existed since 1815. There was also the Dutch Republic which operated as a monarchy in all but name, the head-of-state of that was the Stadtholder, one of which William III of Orange, was also King of England. Many many many Dutch heads-of-state, either of the whole country, or of individual duchies/counties/etc. within it were named William, so without knowing which William you mean, it would be hard to figure out how to make the connection you seek. --Jayron3200:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was just reading about Boris Johnson and noticed that he endorsed Obama in the last election. That struck me as quite odd because he is a member of the Conservative party and I know that most conservatives in the US tend not to be very fond of Obama (to say the least). I realize though, that the Conservative and Labour parties don't have the exact same positions as the Republican and Democrat parties do and that most politicians in Europe are somewhat to the left of their counterparts here in the US. So my questions are: in England (or the rest of Europe) would Obama be considered a conservative (or a center-right politician at least)? And is Boris an anomaly among British conservatives for supporting Obama over McCain or was that a typical sentiment?24.62.245.13 (talk) 21:16, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Obama is certainly conservative by European standards and the Democratic Party probably can be considered Christian democratic. Obama was (iirc) favored by 90% of all Europeans, so it's not unlikely that conservatives in Europe supported him. Regards SoWhy21:27, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Indeed. In very simple terms, the US as a whole is further right than Europe, so Europeans tend to support the leftmost of the US parties, which is the Democrats, even if they would support a right-of-centre party in Europe. Although, in this case the figure is probably so high because people hated Bush so much. --Tango (talk) 21:39, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Conservatives know that if they get into power next year, they'll have to deal with the Obama administration. Britain's standing in the world is often seen here in terms of how much influence we have with the US. Certainly David Cameron was quick to cosy-up to Obama once he'd won[1]. That said, I think he's right that there is much "common ground" between them. Alansplodge (talk) 21:48, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As an American who is well to the left of center, probably even by European standards, I can say that Obama has been a tremendous disappointment. He has showered money on Wall Street but frankly not done much for working people, and he has failed to carry through on many of his more left-leaning promises during the election. I think that he may be something of a model for Cameron and the Conservatives. Like him, they want to appear to be exciting, new, and a vehicle for change, while in fact safeguarding the interests of the wealthy establishment. Marco polo (talk) 22:08, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Healthcare, for example. Of course, Obama's healthcare reforms are, I believe, supported by all the major UK parties - the NHS is extremely popular in the UK (we never stop complaining about it, of course, but that's not the point!). I guess that is an example of the UK (and Europe in general) being further left than the US. What is a leftwing policy in the US is universal here. --Tango (talk) 22:12, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. Things like healthcare for everyone are considered conservative by most (Western) Europeans (i.e. nothing revolutionary but simply how it is). A party with the platform of the US Republican Party could probably not win a single election in any European country for being too far right. Regards SoWhy23:30, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It's also important to remember that what's "conservative" varies based on the traditions of the country. (Because, by definition, a conservative is someone who wants to preserve the way the country is and has been.) For example, a staunch conservative in the UK would strongly support the continuation of the crown, whereas a true conservative in the US would be militantly opposed to a hereditary monarchy. Other things may be shared (like religion and family values), but when discussing particulars, you have to keep in mind that the status quo that the conservatives are conserving may vary between countries. -- 128.104.112.237 (talk) 00:51, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think you are putting too much sway by the names. Just as the Republican party in the US is no more or less in favour of keeping the US a republic than the Democratic party is and the Democratic party is no more or less in favour of keeping the US a democracy than the Republican party is, the Conservative party in the UK is no more or less in favour of conserving things than the Labour or LibDem parties are. --Tango (talk) 01:19, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It might be down to the name Tango, but the Conservatives are more conservative and traditionalist than Labour of the LibDems, although there are many exceptions - particularly in recent years. - Jarry1250[Humorous? Discuss.]10:57, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but "conservative" (little c) in politics doesn't actually mean you conserve things. It is a specific political viewpoint (or range of viewpoints and is often used in relative terms). We talk (somewhat inaccurately, admittedly) about the Victorians being very conservative but they weren't conserving what came before, it was a new viewpoint. It has the name it does because when it was named it was the current mainstream and people with that viewpoint wanted to keep things the same. We still use the name even though things have changed a lot since then. Creationists are often described as conservative when they try to get evolution thrown out of science education, but that isn't an attempt to conserve anything, it is an attempt to wind it back. --Tango (talk) 23:34, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The political gap, so to speak, between the policies of the Republicans and the Democrats is much greater than that of the Tories and the Labour party in this country. And both Gordon Brown and Obama, despite being centre-left leaders in their own countries, are infinitely further to the "right" than any centre-right European politician, particularly on matters economic. This vast divergence in political and economic culture between continental Europe and the UK/US isn't often appreciated. Nor is the sheer hatred of the US and all it stands for by continental Europe. My father, a man who was born and raised in the States but has worked in the UK and continental Europe for about two-thirds of his working life always says that he struggles to get this across to his friends in the States: from my own, more limited, experience, this would seem to be correct. Obama's personal popularity in Europe was just that. The hatred of American global hegemony, and the gnawing envy of its political and economic success, hasn't gone away. Moreschi (talk) 12:10, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"The gnawing envy of its political and economic success"? Please. Why not throw in "they hate our freedom" while you're at it? Only Americans think that America is the center of the universe. FiggyBee (talk) 17:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If I may divulge a minor secret, this dichotomy between liberals and conservatives is both silly and unhelpful. The less a person concerns themselves with who is what, the better understanding you will have. Although I sometimes suspect that people like to be bogged down with these sorts of labels. Keeps them from looking at more fundamental issues with their lives. Vranak (talk) 13:40, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Correct colors in the Flag of Bhutan
There are some outstanding questions in Talk:Flag of Bhutan about the flag images in the article. (1) Three versions of the flag are shown. In the second the two background colors appear to be reversed; is this correct or an error? (2) The article refers to fimbriation between the colors but none is shown in the images; which is correct? (3) The article refers to one of the colors variously as "red" or "orange"; which is correct? Was the color in fact changed? (Judging from a Google image search, access to a Bhutanese official might be required to answer this!) Elphion (talk) 22:34, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1) During the 1950s, Bhutan's flag seems to have shown the darker triangle at honour point (i.e., upper hoist), at least according to Flags of the World. I will check with their mailing list, though, since the text on their Bhutan page makes no mention of this change; 2) There has never been any fimbriation on the Bhutanese flag to the best of my knowledge. Flags of the World's Bhutan page suggests that the term "fimbriation" was incorrectly used by the Bhutanese authorities to simply refer to the join between the two coloured fields; 3) The colours are open to much debate - a quick glance at the FotW page makes that clear enough. The colours were initially listed as "yellow and red" with no further specification, have been interpreted as everything from yellow and maroon through to two shades of orange. According to FotW, the "red was changed to orange by royal command in 1968-69". Some countries (probably Bhutan included) do not specify exact shades for the colours on their flags, but some form of yellow and orange - probably a deep saffron yellow and a reddish or brownish orange - are about as close to official standard colours (no pun intended) as you're likely to get. Grutness...wha?23:17, 20 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well, I posed the question at FOTW, and got several responses. It appears that the image there (which may be the initial source for many of the red-over-yellow flags) was based on a mistranslation of the official Bhutanese description of the flag. It was initially - incorrectly - translated as "The yellow spreads from the summit to the base and forms the fluttering end." The correct translation, as shown at [2] reads "The yellow spreads from the summit to the base while the red extends from the base and forms the fluttering end." So it seems as if yellow over red (or a lighter shade over a darker shade, at least0 has always been the standard. A further comment added numerous online sites showing images of the actual flag in use: [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9]. There's also a pdf of the United Nations' description of the flag here. (with thanks to FotW's Jonathan Dixon and Esteban Rivera). Grutness...wha?22:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A further comment received today (via FotW's Ralph Bartlett): In recent years two of our more well know colleagues, Dr. Whitney Smith and Prof. Michel R. Lupant, have each made separate trips to Bhutan, Nov.-Dec. 2000 and Sep.-Oct. 2007 respectively, during which they researched the origins and use of the Bhutan Flag. A the recent ICV 23 in Yokohama, Japan, Prof. Lupant delivered a lecture on his research, "Flags over Bhutan - Land of the Thunder Dragon". The text of this lecture will be published at some future point by the Japanese Vexillological Association, as part of the proceedings of this Congress. Grutness...wha?20:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
November 21
Corporate Legal rights
I know that corporations, in the eyes of the law, are treated as human individuals. They own property, sign contracts, and act in many ways as if they were a human being. However, do these rights apply to pre-IPO (before their initial public offering of stock) corporations?--LastLived (talk) 04:25, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The short answer, which may have jurisdictional variations, is that, public or private, a company is a legal entity from its incorporation/registration/formation. (The language will vary from place to place.) An IPO has no effect on this characteristic. Bielle (talk) 05:08, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
But they wouldn't have the right to sue and be sued, so valid contracts would have to be made with their original partners or the members of the unincorporated association that preceded the corporation. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:14, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Just to make sure we're all on the same page: initial public offering (IPO) is when a corporation is listed to sell its shares on a stock exchange. Corporation is a legal entity created under government authorization; a corporation may never, ever get listed under an IPO but it remains a corporation. However, prior to INCORPORATION taking place, yes the original "partners" or incorporators would generally be liable for debts of the entity. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 10:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, depending on where you live, a partnership may have many of the legal rights that corporations have. In many U.S. states, if you're a small business, the differences between partnerships and small corporations are so subtle that you'd really need a lawyer or an accountant to tell you on a case-by-case basis which one is more advantageous. --M@rēino23:24, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes. Generally see Corporation. But as the above said, and IPO isn't special. That's an Initial Public Offering. Corporations had no need to be "public", even now. Corporations are incorporated entirely under the state in which they are incorporated. Delaware has largely become the preferred state of incorporation for large companies for a number of reasons, including no-par value requirements, a standard and predictable body of law, and a favorable tax environment. Shadowjams (talk) 06:55, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Bar Club discrimination
I am a teenager, and I have read a couple books about the law. From what I understand, everybody is equal in the eyes of the law. This means that Jim Crow laws are declared unconstitutional by the United States Supreme Court.
This also means that a business cannot charge varied prices for people of different races and sex, right?
However, I heard that clubs and bars (don't worry, I've never been in one yet!) sometimes charge women a discounted price, or let them in free of charge. Isn't this illegal in some sort, since businesses cannot discriminate by sex, which in this case is the male gender? --LastLived (talk) 04:39, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You can always discriminate if the quality you are discriminating based on is actually relevant. To steal an example from a comedy sketch, you can refuse to let a man become a surrogate mother. I expect the exact details of when you can and can't discriminate vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, but it wouldn't surprise me if the discrimination you describe is legal in some jurisdictions. There is a genuine benefit to having an even split of men and women in your bar/club so taking affirmative action to correct an imbalance may well be allowed. (You may even be able to take it further and say that having more women than men is desirable, thus justifying even greater differences in rules and prices - this is done at some sex clubs, for example, they may require men to come as part of a couple but allow single women.) --Tango (talk) 05:30, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There is all kinds of price discrimination. Often, "equality under law" does not figure into it. Refusing to admit someone to an establishment solely due to race and/or sex could be illegal discrimination. Charging different prices would not necessarily be illegal. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 05:53, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'd have to do more research, but I recall that "Ladies' nights" were ruled discriminatory at one point, I think by the courts, but perhaps by the alcoholic beverage control authorities. On the other hand, charging youngsters, students and senior citizens lower ticket prices at cinemas, and charging lower dues to younger members of genuine clubs and associations, is a very old practice, and I doubt that it would constitute age discrimination in terms of human rights policy or law. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:10, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The same thing applies to poker tournaments designated for women only — men can't technically be excluded, and sometimes play, occasionally making a show of it[10]. Tournament contract bridge, on the other hand, still has men-only, women-only, and mixed tournaments, which is apparently OK because the ACBL normally doesn't allow cash tournaments. PhGustaf (talk) 16:31, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Gustaf is seriously out of date regarding bridge tournaments in the ACBL (i.e. in North America; elsewhere I don't know about). Men-only events were abolished about 1990. I don't think there was any formal move to abolish mixed events (which means every pair must have one man and one woman partner), but in practice I never see them on tournament schedules any more. Women-only events have also become less common, but still occur at the highest level, most notably the Wagar Cup.
The way I have seen it explained is that a majority of the top players were men and so the men's events were seen as superior, and so women found it discriminatory that they could not enter and challenge the top players. In addition, some men-only events were used to qualify entrants for international invitational events that did accept women. So female players brought a suit against the ACBL in the 1980s and, if the brief mentions I find on the web are correct, this was a settlement. Mixed and women's events were seen more as social events and there was not the same desire to abolish them. (This rationale strikes me as odd now that women's games mostly occur at the top level, but there it is.) So the tournament schedules that at one time would have featured simultaneous men's and women's events, and maybe also a mixed if the tournament was big enough, were changed to have open and women's (and maybe mixed) events.
By the way, when I say "men" and "women" here, those are just the usual terms. I don't believe it has ever been required that the players must be adults.
Well, I haven't played in an ACBL tournament since before 1990, and I appreciate the correction. (Hey, I even remember individual tournaments.) At that time, It certainly wasn't required that players be adults — I see on looking it up that the youngest Life Master in 1989 was eleven years old, and the current one was nine. PhGustaf (talk) 22:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For the original question: if you want more info on how the theory behind the law works, see strict scrutiny and Rational basis review. Basically, not all kinds of discrimination are equal: some are very dangerous to democracy (for example, governments making life harder for certain racial groups), while others are less dangerous to democracy (for example, businesses offering discounts for a certain gender or age group). --M@rēino23:17, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually it's not so clear. Those "ladies nights" issues have been litigated. I don't know for sure how they turned out, but a far cry from saying they were open and shut. So you know, the 14th amendment's equal protection clause has two issues relevant to your question. The first is whether or not-state enforcement through state power (i.e. police) of a non equal criteria is legitimate, and the second is whether or not that enforcement would affect the question you're talking about. I don't know the answer to that. Be aware though that the 14th amendment isn't really the relevant part. It's instead the statutory laws, for instance the Civil Rights Act of 1965, or the similar one of 1861 (i think). There are some extensions of the 14th amendment into private contracts (in the property rights arena) but those are generally limited. Most restrictions on private rights of exclusion, commercial or otherwise, are based in statutory law. Shadowjams (talk) 06:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To clarify, rather than to challenge: those Civil Rights Acts of 1866-75, as well as the Civil Rights Acts of 1957, 1960, 1964et seq. derive much of their authority from the Reconstruction Amendments to the U.S. Constitution, i.e. the 13th (banning slavery), 15th (forbidding exclusion from the suffrage for race, color or previous condition of servitude) and 14th (due process, equal citizenship and no denial of equal protection of the laws, among other things). Like most constitutional amendments, these ones grant Congress the right to enforce their provisions "by appropriate legislation". However, some rights derive independently from English common law, such as an innkeeper's duty to lodge every paying traveller who applies. [Some provisions of the Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights adopt or incorporate Common Law.] In the Civil Rights Cases of 1883, the U.S. Supreme Court held that the 14th Amendment couldn't apply to discrimination by private parties, only by state actors (government), a ruling partly overturned in Heart of Atlanta Motel v. United States (1964) upholding the public accommodation provisions of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Not off-hand: I first ran across it looking at second-hand books in Moe's Books on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, years ago, although I think I've seen other references. I think it had been used by English anti-discrimination authorities before the U.K. adopted the European equivalent of the U.S. Bill of Rights; and it has more relevance to states which have generally (except for Louisiana) incorporated common law into their case law than to the Federal government directly. In other words, while I'm reasonably confident that I could find a suitable reference by Internet search, consulting books I have or looking at ones I don't, I can't produce one at the moment. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:49, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He may be right about the inkeeper common law right, although I'll say without looking up the sources that there's no way that inherited to any of the common law in the Southern U.S. I will need to reevaluate some of my con law undestanding if you find a federal case that says there's a federal common law right to inkeeper patrons, particularly if it persists past 1890. What Shakescene says is definitely true. Section 5 of the 14th amendment gives a lot of force to reconstruction era legislation, but I think in retrospect that very little rests on the 13th amendment, and I don't remember anything that rests on the 15th (maybe wrong). The 14th gives some very specific authorization, and Heart of Atlanta only expands my explanation above. Equitable covenants persisted well past that however. I just want to point out though that most civil rights legislation has nothing to do with section 5, nor have very many laws ever been argued to have even been authorized by the reconstruction amendments. Shadowjams (talk) 09:17, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks, that's very interesting. I guess I was forgetting quite how important inns were when most of common law was originally created. --Tango (talk) 09:30, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
After sleeping on my answer, I realized that while much of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 rests on the 14th Amendment — notice how many of today's arguments rest on "due process", "equal protection" and the idea of those duties being extended to state & local government, all of which arguments derive largely from the 14th Amendment — the public accommodations sections (as argued, I think, in the Heart of Atlanta case) rested much more heavily on an extremely broad interpretation of Congress' Article I, section 8, power to regulate commerce among the several states. Before 1964, there had been several earlier Federal rulings about desegregating interstate buses, trains and their stations, both in the Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 and by orders of the Interstate Commerce Commission; and the Freedom Rides of 1960-1961 were specifically designed to test the applicability of such policies (or to expose their inapplicability) in the Southern states. (Insofar as civil rights legislation affecting private transactions rested on bases other than the 14th Amendment, of course, the less the courts would need to be asked to confront or contradict the findings of the 1883 Civil Rights Cases.) —— Shakescene (talk) 19:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
And by way of yet further clarification, or correction, of my clarifications: (1) according to their Wikipedia articles, most of the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and the Civil Rights Act of 1960 concerned protecting (i.e., restoring) voting rights. Most of Congress's power to legislate against states' denial of voting rights on the basis of race comes more from the Fifteenth Amendment than from the Fourteenth. (2) The Supreme Court did explicitly overrule itself in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954), ruling that students in racially-segregated schools were thereby being denied the "equal protection of the laws" guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment; in Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), the Court had ruled that New Orleans, Louisiana, could require separate but equal streetcars for whites and Negroes without denying equal protection to the latter. In Brown v. Board, the Court essentially said that in practice separate becomes unequal. —— Shakescene (talk) 07:18, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This turned out to be an excellent discussion about the reconstruction amendments as to the enumerated powers. If our original poster can synthesize any of this into a homework assignment I bet his teacher doesn't understand it (no guarantees as to whether or not it's an A). Shadowjams (talk) 09:49, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
He was the author of an article which, around 1880, initiated a public discussion on the Judenfrage / Jewish question (see [11]). Somewhat simultaneously, the first antisemitic "party", the Antisemitenliga (see [12]), was established by Wilhelm Marr. I can find no evidence of any direct involvement of HvT in this party. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 21:26, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
another geography question
which can be the place whose main attractions are sandy beaches and offshore wave action desired by world-class surfers. The natural ambience has caught the attention of land developers, but for the most part the locals have successfully fought-off any Waikiki Beach-type commercial explosion. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.86.213 (talk) 15:36, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is there any way to find out if my deceased grandmother was born Jewish? She muist have been born around 1900 or before. There are one or two events in my family history during that suggest she might have been, before becoming christian. Unfortunately other family members who might have known have passed away themselves. I think it would be interesting and somewhat prestigeous if she was. 78.146.30.105 (talk) 20:37, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Some censuses and some birth certificates mention religion. Conversely, if there is a record of her baptism as a baby, she was probably Christian lifelong. You'll need to tell us what country she was born in and lived in for the volunteers to be able to point you to the relevant geneology records and give advice on researching her birth record and/or any census mentions. Best, WikiJedits (talk) 20:54, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Did she live in the U.S. then, or some other country where buildings and their contents were not destroyed in WW2? Many small or medium towns did not have that many Jewish congregations, and a membership record might exist. The U.S. census did not record religion, but in many countries religion was stated on government documents. The census might provide some indication by the names and professions of the living in the same premises, or the neighborhood she in which she lived. Ancestry.com might have someone's family tree which includes her or her ancestors. Edison (talk) 21:00, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The worldwide Jewish community actually keeps quite good records on this, in order to verify marriages and so and check the relevant person's jewish 'pedigree'. Try the http://www.jewishgen.org/ or similar websites. If that doesn't work, try contacting your local Orthodox Jewish Community (Liberal and Reform jews have much poorer records as they are both more recent movements and less concerned with ancestry ideologically), they'll probably know of the 'mothership source' of it all. Prokhorovka (talk) 21:13, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Being baptised as an infant wouldn't necessarily prove anything; if your great-grandmother were Jewish, then by definition she, too, was Jewish, even if your great-grandparents converted before your grandmother's birth. Nyttend (talk) 23:45, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You could go on to Ancestry.com and find the family in the 1901 census. This would give you an address, and you might be able to track down the synagogue which served that are. You could then get in touch with them to find out if they held any records on that family. --TammyMoet (talk) 10:16, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes but in the UK the information is either "patron submissions" i.e. someone has put some information on there, or taken from parish records. IIRC these records are only Church of England records: no Jewish records are on there. So you could have to rely on hearsay if you go through them. --TammyMoet (talk) 19:23, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Christian Bible is the most successful book of all time
I have found this information many times. Anyone have a good reference for it? Can't find even one online today only that it is " is America’s favorite book of all time"... ~ R.T.G22:32, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Possibly "translated into the most languages" and/or "most copies printed," though this may refer to the entire Bible or only the Old Testament. -- Deborahjay (talk) 22:38, 21 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
You also need to decide if you are going to refer to every version of the Bible as "The Bible" or if you are going to treat each version as a separate book. Then, ensure you state what you mean. If you want to call every printed book that contained something similar to what you think is a Bible as being "The Bible", you are not basing popularity/sales on the same standard as other books. -- kainaw™03:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The average Christian, in considering the total sales of Bibles, would likely consider the various translations to be lumped together; i.e. they would include the King James Version, the Revised Standard Version, Good News for Modern Man, and a whole mess of others to be "the Bible" for that purpose. Books that "retell" the Bible in paraphrasing, i.e. in "Bible Stories" format would not count. ←Baseball BugsWhat's up, Doc?carrots→ 05:53, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Speak about overlooked elephants, (1) the translation doesn't matter—if you were to assert that the Koran or Das Kapital or The Communist Manifesto or Machiavelli's Prince was the world's most successful or most dangerous book, you wouldn't be wondering about editions, versions or translations; (2) the obviously-begged question is what does "successful" mean—succeeding how or at what? There's no way we mere mortals can count the number of souls saved by the reading (or just the existence) of the Bible; and that would be the only true test, given the Book's purpose. Although it would still be mainly a debate that doesn't really belong here, perhaps a more useful question might be whether the Bible is the world's most influential book, or the one that has induced the most conversions (or, again hard to measure, prevented the most fallings-away). And the relevance of such tests would vary if one were Christian or Jewish (the Pentateuch's scribes' main purpose was not to convert people to Judaism or send them to Heaven.) —— Shakescene (talk) 06:18, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No Bugs, the topic is the existence of the book. If existing is the defining quality, the bible has existed more successfully unless you want to be confusing, complicated or provide a specialist study. (Wahaha) Cockatoo.ergo.Zoom!!! God I am dumb sometimes I was searching the engines and stuff for half an hour looking for something proper about that and it was on Wikipedia (as you would imagine) all the time ! Thankes ~ R.T.G11:50, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
??? Oddest concept I've ever heard of. Is it possible to unsuccessfully exist? No, it's not just about existing, because all books that have been created and are still sitting somewhere, even in the darkest recesses of the most obscure Tibetan lamasery, exist. None is more "successful" at simply existing than any other. -- JackofOz (talk) 12:19, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually . . . I personally believe the King James Bible is the only true and reliable Bible in the English language, and that all other Bible versions in English are to certain degress corrupted, so it does matter which Bible You use, but then even the King James had a number of editions, some due to typographical errors in the relatively earlier days of printing without spellcheck, such as the notorious " Wicked Bible " of 1628, which, according to the Australian author R. Brasch, left out the word " not " in a critical verse in Exodus, which was supposed to read, " Thou shalt not commit adultery. " The thing is, as bad as that is, and one should be careful, the context of the rest of the Bible should put one in no doubt as to what it was supposed to mean.
But yes, You're right, as Christians, we do lump all books referred to as " Bibles " together, regardless of version, when considering the Bible to be the best seller of all time - even in booklets published by pro King James and anti new Bible version people, also giving us cause to doubt the statement that King James I ( and VI ) was a homosexual, which I believe is a viscious rumour perpetrated by a disgruntled contemporary. Now since some, but not all, Christians, may support only one version of the Scriptures, this doesn't make it hypocritical to lump the unreliable ones in, since even though parts of them are corrupt, and other Christians may argue this point themselves, these modern versions still contain a good deal of God's Word, certainly, God is not going to deny salvation to someone just because they don't have the King James Bible. This is because most of these weakened Bible versions have been imspired into existence because of the original true Bible, although their falsehoods are the work of the Devil. I only wish other Christians would realise this, and accept the King James. Their excuse is that it is hard to understand. Well, if they are going to study the Bible as they should, are they going to be scared of a little effort? And in any case, the King James Bible is the One used to help generations of children learn to read, so it can't be that hard. They want something in modern, flashy, groovy, cool dude language, as if the KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS is some hairy hippy waiting to come down to take them to Woodstock or the Big Day Out. From the Merchant of Venice I recall that " all that glisters is not gold. " Well meaning Christians try to make Christ into their own image, when they forget that He is working to mould us into His.
The Russian.C.B.Lilly User:Christopher196802:02, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There are large numbers of people with PhDs that are regular Wikipedians and I don't believe their are any more advanced academic qualifications, so you will have to tell us how you are defining "qualified" if you are going to stand any chance of getting an answer to that one. I doubt we can answer the first one either - many Wikipedians edit pseudonymously, so there is no way we can find out their wealth or income. I bet there are plenty of millionaires, though. --Tango (talk) 05:07, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
FWIW, my PhD supervisor (now a head of department at an Australian university) is a fairly regular contributor here on his specialist subject, and I have mentored another editor i know personally who has had numerous books published on the history of southern New Zealand - the subject on which he writes for WP. I doubt they're the only two highly-qualified editors, and I expect there are some editors even more qualified. And undoubtedly many richer. Grutness...wha?20:35, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If college education is "qualification," I have completed more years of college than many editors have been alive. I am certain I am very far from the richest editor. Edison (talk) 05:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why do people so often ask for two things to be optimised at the same time? what is the tallest building that is most northerly? Which is the biggest country with the smallest population? Dmcq (talk) 18:51, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm writing an article about a Catholic church that originally had one patron saint but later changed to another. What do we call this process of getting a new patron? Nyttend (talk) 05:11, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
"Rededication" probably. However, I don't think it is correct to call the saint a church is dedicated that church's "patron saint". Countries, crafts, professions, etc. have patron saints, churches are dedicated to a saint. There is a difference. --Tango (talk) 05:18, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above posts were just trying to clarify English-language usage. In (Catholic) France too churches have a fête patronale for the saint that they are dedicated to. Rededication is your answer unless anyone knows otherwise. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Many Anglican churches in the UK have had the same dedication since before the Reformation. To what extent each parish follows Catholic tradition is highly variable. The second link I gave suggests that particular church is part of the Anglo-Catholic wing of the Church of England. Alansplodge (talk) 13:26, 27 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Which empire's imperial expansion resulted in the most colonial deaths between 1492-1914
Which empire's imperial expansion resulted in the most colonial deaths between 1492-1914? The USA is often shown to be uniquely "evil" because of the extermination of the Indians, and African slavery. A fair estimate would be 2 million Indians and .5 million African dead. So I'm curious to know to what extent this death toll is unique to USA and to what extent it was simply part of the global process of
the birth of capitalism and imperialism. So I would like to know how the death toll of the European empires compares to US settlerism. For the sake of my question, all British actions in the future USA should be counted as part of the US rather than UK stats. Thanks --Gary123 (talk) 07:36, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Your question seems designed to denigrate the US as much as possible. Why should British actions count towards the US? (Why should US actions not count towards Britain?) In any case, as Cookatoo says, the Spanish far outdid everyone else. See also Black Legend. Adam Bishop (talk) 08:34, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
No, I think that, although it had a particular purpose in mind, this wasn't an anti-U.S. question. The enquirer wanted a basis to decide whether there was anything particularly blameworthy or particularly praiseworthy about the behavior of Americans (under whatever flag), as compared with other empires. Were he to assert —without the kind of factual evidence he or she seeks— that Americans were either particularly noble or particularly vicious, then that would be tendentious. The other question to ask, though not in justification or absolution of persecution, is about the behavior of the native (non-European) empires existing before 1492. Attacking native savagery, to the extent it existed, is no license to persecute ("if we hadn't arrived, then they would have..."), but whitewashing such savagery as existed is just to engage in denigrating Europeans by idealizing or giving license to non-Europeans ("had racist Columbus never appeared, then..."). —— Shakescene (talk) 08:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think the premise is wrong. Who "shows the US to be uniquely evil"? However, what is true is that the US expansion happened rather late in history, and that its treatment of the native people and slaves is in particularly stark contrast with the enlightenment principles expressed by its founding fathers. All men are created equal, with inalienable rights including life and liberty....--Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
First off, the "colonial empire" of the United States was the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, etc. and was mostly acquired ca. 1898 and either given independence or given statehood within the U.S. about 50 years later (except for a few islands, most of which are quite small and not very populated), and had only one really bloody episode before 1914 (the suppression of the Philippines uprising). If you're talking about the period when areas of the current day U.S. were part of somebody else's colonal empire, then responsibility for any such atrocities would appear to fall mainly on the British, French, Spanish, or Russians, rather than on the U.S. government (which didn't yet exist or had no authority there at that time).
Anyway, if you're trying to compare the deaths resulting from the expansion of British settlement in North America, and the ensuing consolidation and development of the United States (a sequence of events for which "colonial empire" is not the most felicitous description) vs. the deaths due to any of the major 20th-century atrocities (such as Stalinist agricultural collectivisation, Holocaust, Mao's Great Leap Forward, etc.), then I'm pretty certain that there's no real comparison at all. There was no major civilization (such as the Incas, Aztecs, or Mayas) in the British north American territories or the later U.S., and the closest thing to a major civilization there in 1492 had been very significantly disruped by the Hernando De Soto expedition and its aftermath long before the British arrived in the area. Much of the British north American territories or the later U.S. had been fairly lightly populated by the standards of settled agricultural societies, and diseases almost certainly killed off a lot more Indians than any direct actions by British or Americans did. There were a lot of shabby and morally reprehensible episodes, broken treaties, and brutal incidents, but the body count does not really approach near to that of many other wars/invasions/etc. in history.
And slave owners in the U.S. generally couldn't afford to work their slaves to death (which was a frequent trend in the sugar plantations of more tropical zones of the Western hemisphere); here's a quote from the book Ordeal by Fire by James M. McPherson:
"The U.S. slave population increased by an average of 27 percent per decade after 1810 [i.e. after the national ban on importation of new slaves from Africa was enacted], almost the same natural growth rate as for the white population. This rate of increase was unique in the history of [Western hemisphere] bondage. No other slave population in the Western Hemisphere even maintained, much less increased, its population through natural reproduction. In Barbados, for example, the decennial natural decrease from 1712 to 1762 was 43 percent. At the time of emancipation [1865], the black population of the United States was ten times the number of Africans who had been imported, but the black population of the West Indies was only half the number of Africans who had been imported. Of the eleven million Africans brought across the Atlantic, the United States received only five percent; yet at the time of emancipation, it had more than 30 percent of the hemisphere's black population."
If you're really interested in extremely bloody conquests which established a colonial empire, then why not examine the Mongol invasions of the 13th-century A.D.? AnonMoos (talk) 14:20, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Clearly the slaves did not come to the US from Africa on their own, but were captured by Africans, Arabs [16] and Europeans, and transported mostly by Europeans. Britain was the leading slave trade country until the trade by British was outlawed in 1807[17]. Much of the blame for the evils of slavery rests on the purveyors of slaves, as well as on the purchasers and subsequent masters. See Belgian Congo for a discussion of the depopulation of the region caused by enslavement and mass killings in atrocities under Leopold II of Belgium after the Europeans divided up the Congo for their enrichment in the 1880s[18] The period has been called "the Belgian Congo holocaust[19].[20]" The Africans in the Belgian Congo were forced to perform work for the state, dragged to the work site in chains sometimes, for which they were rarely paid [21][22]. The Africans fought against this late colonialization, but lacked modern weapons. Meanwhile the Africans were treated very harshly by white settlers. [23]. Germany in 1904 ordered extermination of the Hereroes of German South Africa. While King Leopold did not order the extermination of the Congolese, his atrocities including rape mutilation, starvation, exposure, and overwork are said to have led to the death of 10,000,000 people, half of the population.[24][25]Edison (talk) 19:43, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, many more were killed in Leopold of Belgium's Congo Free State over a mere 13 years than Indians were killed by British and Americans across the whole of North America during all the period from 1607 to 1914... AnonMoos (talk) 11:58, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, in both North America and the Congo, the majority of deaths (in North America the vast majority of deaths) were due to disease. But in North America this came about through the (mostly) unintentional introduction of Old-world diseases; in the Congo, the population succumbed to indigenous diseases through exhaustion and malnutrition under the colonial regime. The latter seems more culpable than the former. (And of course, neither situation was unique.) Elphion (talk) 19:14, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Why is science not kept secret?
Even the most authoritarian countries don't keep their scientific research secret, aside from research directly relating to weapons systems. Why not? Wouldn't it make more sense to restrict all science to government labs while taking advantage of foreign science journals, so that enemies can't take advantage of your research?
It was never kept as a secret per se. However, applications of scientific works (meaning, military technology, commercial patents and etc) are being kept secret to different levels. The thing is that you mostly can't keep your scientific work secret by the nature of scientific research which is involved with sharing of information and funding that come from different countries. You can't do good science without being part of it.--Gilisa (talk) 11:06, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was thinking that a country could take advantage of science from the rest of the world, but restrict its own scientific research to dedicated government labs. There wouldn't be many breakthroughs, sure, but any discoveries would benefit the discovering country only, instead of equally benefiting friend and foe. --99.237.234.104 (talk) 11:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
A lot of research is done in secret, not just weapons systems (cryptography, for example, although that isn't science). However, science progresses much faster when people collaborate. Even if you were the only country keeping your research secret and read foreign journals you would still be significantly harming your understanding of other people's research and your ability to research new things due to not being able to attend conferences, spend time in other universities, exchange students, etc. That means that it is generally a better use of money to do open research than secret research unless there is a specific reason for keeping a particular bit of research secret. --Tango (talk) 11:13, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Also, this assumes that this is a zero-sum game, or at least a competition. But it is not - by pooling scientific research, both sides are better off. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 12:34, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Exactly what sort of foreign research would one hope to find in a journal if countries would maintain research secrecy -- they would consist of only the silly letter from the editor followed by advertisements? DRosenbach(Talk | Contribs)13:55, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
We can also tell that the countries which benefit more from scientific cooperation are these which lead the scientific community and that anyway they are more probable to convert basic science to technological advantage. So, while they benefit more than other from such cooperation they also have only little chance to lose their advantage because of it. You can take China as a good example for a country with very competitive approach toward USA for instance, but still encourage its scientific community to participate in international research, international conferences, host such conferences and have student exchange programs. USA do the same.--Gilisa (talk) 14:02, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On this note, a junior Soviet Union intelligence officer in the World War days is said to have derived the US Nuclear Program's existence due to the sudden disappearance of any nuclear related articles by US scientists in journals. Prokhorovka (talk) 14:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Back to the OP; its because Science does not work this way. Regardless of what you see in the movies, science never happens as one isolated scientist working in a lab by himself. Science works by individual scientists making incremental progress. It's not always intentionally collaborational, per se, but rather lots of scientists all working independently building little tiny additions onto the work of others. Lots of technology is made in secret, but technology is not science... --Jayron3203:55, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think OP's idea of science is based more on games, rather than movies. In computer games scientific research is most often portrayed like this: there is a limited set of discoveries that can be made, and making a certain discovery (say, "internal combustion") before a competing player/the computer makes the self same discovery can bring an edge (you get to make cars while the competition still rides horse carriages). Not really how science works in real life. TomorrowTime (talk) 07:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In computer games (say "Red Alert") being scientist meaning being able to solve the hardest questions and to transform theoretical findings to far reaching technological advantage (e.g., time machine) in a very limited time and without any external help needed. Science as it portrait in computer games (which are designed by very skillful humans actually)or in children TV shows is never sisypheaic or gradual and holding a PhD meaning being no less than Einstein.--Gilisa (talk) 08:34, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Humans naturally take pride in the use of their minds. They will in fact flock to countries where their minds can be put to use. And people are show-offs. They like to interact with other human beings. How would a country put a lid on a barrel full of monkeys people acting-out in full view of one another? Bus stop (talk) 15:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think a better way to think about this, rather than the "science=freedom" or "it is a choice between openness and security" ways of thinking, is to see it as being a trade-off involved in trying to keep something secret. You may not be very successful, and you may slow down development of further work, inhibit economic development, and encourage other countries not to give you their info either. (Also, secrecy is neither easy nor cheap to enforce, and requires creating a vast system of clearances, review systems, etc.) So for most science/tech, it doesn't really make a whole lot of sense to try and keep it secret. For some, the trade-off appears more slated towards classification, export control, etc. The appeals to it being about the "open" nature of science don't really jive with how a lot of science is done (a huge amount if classified or at least proprietary and not circulated; top-notch scientists have shown time and time again that they are willing to work in secret if there is a lot money in it for them or if there are appeals to nationalism, etc.). --Mr.98 (talk) 21:22, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In the Wikipedia entry for L. Frank Baum it says "His works predicted such century-later commonplaces as color television, laptop computers (The Master Key), wireless telephones (Tik-Tok of Oz), and the ubiquity of advertising on clothing (Aunt Jane's Nieces at Work)". Specifically where in Tik-Tok of Oz is there reference to a wireless telephone? 212.235.72.223 (talk) 12:57, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mobile phone might be a better description. Wireless phones from even fifty years ago were things you carried around in your car. Dmcq (talk) 14:44, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was recently attending a bondage workshop. There were mostly men tying up women, but also a couple of women tying up men, or women tying up other women. However, there was not a single man tying up another man. Is bondage really more common among women than men, or was this just a coincidence? JIP | Talk13:39, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm just speculating, and have no expertise in this area, but maybe the men tying up other men were at a workshop being run by such men, though that wouldn't explain the women tying up women at yours. Nothing on our Bondage (BDSM) page about demographic split though. Prokhorovka (talk) 14:25, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of course, it could be that the women tying up women were interested in bondage rigging, i.e. tying people up for the aesthetics and art form, not for sexual pleasure. But that still doesn't explain why I didn't see men do the same. JIP | Talk19:18, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, there was a male homosexual leather subculture decades before the term BDSM was first coined. I think that as recently as 15 years ago, heterosexuals interested in Bondage etc. were sometimes envious that gays were often better organized and interconnected than they were... AnonMoos (talk) 14:29, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rest assured that bondage is very much alive and well between men. Some accidental and deliberate finds on the internet confirm it. Steewi (talk) 01:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Well if the organiser and instruction were heterosexual men, then your question is answered. Heterosexual men are (sometimes) interested in being tied up by women. They are (sometimes) interested in tying women up. They are also interested in women tying up women because heterosexual men find lesbianism - or pretend lesbianism - sexy. They definitely aren't interested in men tying up men, because that is a gay male thing, and heterosexual men find it uncomfortable or at least unsexy. Itsmejudith (talk) 20:52, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the organiser's and instructor's personal interests only influenced whom they tied up themselves. They were entirely willing to accept anyone interested in tying up anyone in the workshop, regardless of sex or sexual orientation. It's just that no men interested in tying up men turned up. Your reply makes it sound like the organiser and instructor decided on the attendees themselves, instead of letting people sign up freely. What really happened is that the attendees were people genuinely interested in learning about bondage, and their preferences about whom they tied up, or who they were tied up by, were their own genuine personal decision, without any regard to the organiser's or instructor's personal preferences. Each person had to sign up personally as either a tier(sp?), or a model, or both. Most people who signed up were couples. Frankly, never mind the fact that I myself am a heterosexual man who happens to find lesbianism sexy, I am offended by your reply. JIP | Talk21:22, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry my reply offended you. I should have made it clearer that it was only a suggestion. Since you say that the organisers did not decide who would participate, the reply just above (just below, because of the reorganising) seems to be a reasonable explanation. Itsmejudith (talk) 10:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Regarding the women who tied up other women, I would like to think that they not only appreciated the art of it, they like to do because it was fun, or they signed up for the workshop for a new experience. Even, some of these woman just participated in the recreation of this activity, with no thought of art.
As a homosexual man myself, I can tell you why I would not tie up another man (even if he was my S.O.):
You can get beat up
Humans are prejudicial
Gays are probably not interested in signing up in non explicitly gay safe activity (there is no disclaimer in the sign up sheet, advertisement, etc. that says the activity is gay friendly)
Check out also where this event was advertised. If it was not advertised in any stereotypically gay venues/institutions, gays would likely not attend the event.174.3.102.6 (talk) 09:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Suomi Claus engaging in seasonal SMHad you but waited a month, you would have observed this chap (wearing his customary red combat gear) tying up his reindeer. --Cookatoo.ergo.ZooM (talk) 14:33, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In regard to my own reply above, what is a general English-language term for someone who ties people up, regardless of whether he/she does it as an art form, for sexual pleasure, or for any other reason? JIP | Talk20:27, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm not aware of any particular term for such an individual. In most cases, bondage also involves Dominance/Submission play (hence BDSM: Bondage/Dominance/Submission/Masochism). The person doing the tying-up is usually the Dominant, also called Dom, Top or Master/Mistress. If it's not explicitly D/S play related, I've not heard of a term for it. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite22:26, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As an addendum, I have to echo what others said above. Gay/bisexual men have dealt with enough problems in such events over the years that most will shy away from an event that is not specifically advertised as "Gay Friendly." Women playing with women does not get as bad a reception among heterosexual couples, so it's far more common in mixed environments. — The Hand That Feeds You:Bite22:29, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Terms like VIP and VVIP are mainly used when somebody gives special treatment to certain people they encounter. The use of both terms depend a lot on who that somebody is and which people they can expect to encounter. It appears from a brief search that the term VVIP is mainly used in India and other Asian countries. PrimeHunter (talk) 17:26, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
They are both relative terms. How important is "very important" depends on how important a typical person is. Ditto for VVIP. --Tango (talk) 17:37, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Superstar? Are you living in the 1980s? The current standard for referring to someone moderately famous is "Megastar". This inflation of obsequiousness seems akin to the euphemism treadmill - a "sycophancy treadmill" perhaps? FiggyBee (talk) 15:05, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Megastar has redirected to Celebrity since the 2005 creation. The latter makes no mention of "megastar" so we must conclude that a megastar is merely a celebrity. Or the unthinkable: That Wikipedia isn't perfect. PrimeHunter (talk) 21:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
year naming
So far in this century we have called the years two-thousand-something, as in two thousand six for 2006. I'm beginning to hear references to next year as twenty-ten (as well as two thousand ten). Of course, most of us referred (and refer) to years in the last century as nineteen-something, although I remember older people in my youth hark back to, say, nineteen hundred and six.
Not sure quite what you mean but surely it's just a matter of personal preference. Twenty-ten is less syllables than Two-thousand-and-ten so as a form of 'short-hand' it'd make sense for plenty of people to say that. Similarly the next decade is likely to be referred to as the 'teens', similar to how some people refer to the period 2000-2009 as the 'noughties'. My preference would be twenty-ten because it's quicker, but in reality there's no 'wrong' or 'right'. ny156uk (talk) 19:10, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right. UK: Nineteen-oh-one or nineteen hundred and one; nineteen fifty-one; two thousand and one; two thousand and eleven or twenty eleven. US: (Not sure.) Two thousand one; two thousand eleven or twenty eleven (covered in link above). Pros and cons? Not really - it has a lot to do with what "sounds right", which has something to with what other people say. Length is an issue in some cases, like nineteen [hundred and] twelve, and twenty [hundred and] twelve is in that vein. We will have to see what catches on in entirety - the UK names listed above were, AFAIK, used at those times just as they are now. - Jarry1250[Humorous? Discuss.]21:54, 22 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In Australia and New Zealand the British system is most widely used, though "Two thousand nine" has crept in as a minority use, particularly in the media. ISTR that in the US you can also encounter "nineteen-aught-one" occasionally. Grutness...wha?00:12, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In the UK people, including myself, call the present year "two thousand and nine". Two thousand is a little easier to say than nineteen-hundred or one thousand nine hundred and.... so that may mean that 20xx has a different naming pattern than 19xx. 92.24.170.160 (talk) 20:04, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It must be understood that Gaelic as spoken in Scotland basically came from the Ulster Scots, who were actually from Ireland. There is more to it than that, but this question would be like asking 'why is Smith considered to be an American name?' --KageTora - SPQW - (影虎) (talk)01:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Slight clarification: Gaelic in today's Scotland does have its roots in Ireland, but I don't think the Ulster Scots brought it over to Scotland. Somewhat the opposite--the Ulster Scots came from Scotland to Ireland (and stayed), and these Ulster Scots mostly spoke Lowland Scots, then standard English. Correct me if I'm wrong. . . --71.111.194.50 (talk) 03:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
There has always been lots of movement across the Irish sea, especially between and within the pre-Saxon peoples of the British Isles. It would be unsurprising if the same last name appeared far enough back in both nations to be considered "Native" to both Ireland and Scotland. --Jayron3203:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, there's a confusion of ethnonyms here. The Scoti were an ancient people of Ireland, who colonised Dalriada and brought the Gaelic language with them. From them we get the name 'Scotland' for the northern part of Great Britain. The Ulster Scots people were Presbyterians from Scotland who were encouraged to settle in Ulster in the North of Ireland, in the 17th Century. They certainly did not speak Gaelic. --ColinFine (talk) 23:13, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(1) There's a host of names that are both Scottish and Irish, for all kinds of reasons (some of them obvious). Sometimes they have different spellings and sometimes not. (2) See Ulster Scots (or "Ullans", merging Ulster with Lallans, the name for Lowland Scots) for the Scottish dialect spoken by Ulster Scots which is now a minor official language of the Northern Ireland Assembly. [An article about Ullans that I read several years ago quoted one rural Ulster Protestant as saying that one of the local experts on (and preservationists for) the tongue was a Irish nationalist Gaelic-language enthusiast who supported Sinn Féin (which fits in with the official position of the IRA that they weren't anti-Protestant, just against British occupation).] It was years before I learned that Scottish or Scots is not the name for Scottish Gaelic, but for the variety of (or alternative to) English spoken in Scotland, and found, for example, in the poetry of Robert Burns. (3) There were, as said above, earlier smaller waves of settlers from England, Wales and Scotland while those nations were still Roman Catholic, whose descendants stayed Catholic and partly assimilated into the local Irish culture. See, for example, Old English. And the Irish Sea and St George's Channel were of course crossed by settlers in both directions before the arrival of Christianity. —— Shakescene (talk) 21:27, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are there any societies or places where eugenics/selective breeding of humans (i.e. pairing two humans to mate based on genetics/qualities/characteristics) is practiced today? 68.95.118.241 (talk) 02:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Eugenics is a bit of a slippery term. It seems to me that "eugenic" programs today usually focus on discouraging/preventing certain groups of people from breeding instead of actively encouraging desirable pairings. This type of eugenics, if indeed one is to call it that, is all over the place. From relatively minor anti-incest laws to the sterilizations of people "undesirable for reproduction" in China under the maternal and infant health law. Pollinosisss (talk) 03:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The Unification Church mass weddings did cross my mind, but I'm not sure if that would count as eugenics per se - I don't think rev. Moon does this to "better the gene pool". Also, speaking of religious groupings, is anybody more familiar with Raelianism? They seem like the kind of people that might actively support eugenics. Can anyone confirm or deny this? --TomorrowTime (talk) 09:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
On Cyprus, there has been for a few decades now mandatory genetic screening for thalassemia in both parents and fetuses, with abortion being practically mandatory if the child is found to have the expressed condition (it is not, however, legally compulsory—but there are very strong social pressures). There have been some that have compared it to eugenics, and it is state-coordinated with a goal of reducing the overall expression in the population (and has been quite successful at that goal). Note that it does not and does not try to reduce the number of carriers (which would be a much more ambitious and troublesome eugenic plan, as it would affect even those who were themselves healthy but had the recessive trait on their genome). (This makes it somewhat different than, say, the routine abortion of fetuses with Down's syndrome in the West, which has eugenics-y overtones but is not state-coordinated at all and as such seems to fit into a different category.) If you Google "cyprus thalassemia eugenics" you can find some good academic articles. Whether one considers this to be "eugenics" (or whether any genetic screening is "eugenics") depends a lot on what you consider "eugenics" to mean, which is slippery. --Mr.98 (talk) 16:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Aborting Down's foetuses has nothing to do with eugenics - Down's suffers have dramatically reduced fertility (men are almost always completely infertile) so children of Down's suffers are very rare. While about half of children born to Down's sufferers have Downs, the vast majority of Down's suffers have it due to random chance, not inherited. Those that abort Down's foetuses usually justify it in terms of the quality of life of the child (this is not the place to debate the merit of that justification). --Tango (talk) 16:54, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Is that really the usual justification? I've usually heard the justification that it wasn't fair on the parents or society in general. Which is more despicable than your suggestion, but yours requires the justifiers to not have ever met anyone with Down's. 86.140.144.63 (talk) 19:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I suspect that is the usual reason, but few people dare say it when they are discussing a specific abortion. What they say (ie. the justification) is that it is best for the child. I agree with you final point - the main thing I remember about a friend of mine's Down's sister is how happy she always was. --Tango (talk) 19:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It depends how you define "eugenics", as I said. There are a lot of articles debating just this point. See, e.g., Mary Mahowald, "Aren't we all eugenicists?" which argues that it is a eugenic practice. Personally, I tend to say no, it isn't "eugenics" per se, but my method of defining "eugenics" is rather limited to instances where you are trying to actively manipulate the state of an entire population, which is not what is going on in such cases. (That still doesn't mean it is a good idea, or ethical.) --Mr.98 (talk) 03:09, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think any reasonable definition can include aborting foetuses with non-inherited diseases as a eugenic practise. Eugenics is about improving the "quality" of the population over the long term, aborting such a foetus only improves it for the potential life of that individual. --Tango (talk) 10:18, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It depends on whether you are defining "eugenics" historically/descriptively or prescriptively. "Eugenics" was applied to quite a lot of things in its heyday. I tend to prefer a more limited definition myself, but again, it is an area of some dispute. When you poll people for why they abort for Down's, they are often using "eugenics-like" rhetoric, a rhetoric that equates social value with future possible economic achievement as limited by biology, for example. This is not the same thing as a population-fitness focus, of course. --Mr.98 (talk) 20:11, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As a consequence of religious regulations, members of the Jewish faith have been inbreeding for centuries. As such, there are a number of genetic disorders that have cropped up with startling incidence among them, such as factor XI deficiency, Tay-Sachs disease, etc. To combat this high occurrence, an organization called Dor Yesharim was created to anonymously test singles and assign them a code number. Prospective matches call the service, provide both code numbers and a response of "good" or "no good" is given -- only homozygous couples (so to speak) are declared "no good," but it's unknown which of the numerous disorders they are homozygous for, so that there is little to no stigma (because, generally, the only thing one will know about their potential match is their appropriateness for oneself, not his or her past inappropriateness for another). Still, some decry the eugenics of it all. DRosenbach(Talk | Contribs)00:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually, the most common genetic disorder that Jewish people who use Dor Yesharim service are being afraid of is Tay-Sachs (and also CF). This is a lethal disease, and the offspring is died within two years after the birth. CF patients are mostly infertile and so forth. So it's not that there is any element of Eugenics here more than in standard ultrasound scanning-people just want their baby to survive. If you think on it, in old times childrens with CF couldn't reach the life expectancy they have today. So, people who apply Dor Yesharim just want to have baby without a disease that would kill him/her. Also, these disorders are the by products of extreme isolation in small communities -meaning that they were promoted in what you may call "reverse eugenics"-so they only bring the balance back. It's not that they ask whether the child will be an elite athlete, university professor and etc.--Gilisa (talk) 16:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually? Not only did I mention Tay-Sachs, I included it in my short list of "A, B, etc." The air of superiority in your comment is unwarranted and unwelcome. And the fact that other disorders (namely the other one I happened to include in my short list as "A") do allow for viable offspring rejects your claim to eugenics not playing a role. DRosenbach(Talk | Contribs)06:23, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If by CF you mean Cystic fibrosis, only most male CF patients are infertile (although not sterile): female CF patients are as fertile as anyone else. And the life expectancy for CF has been increasing for decades: I'd be surprised if the median life expectancy has been lower than 34 years at any point when the Dor Yesharim service has been available, and children born now could be looking at the same life expectancy as the general population. 86.142.224.156 (talk) 17:01, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
86, Still, it's far from being Eugenics. First, life expectancy with a median of 34 is yet much lower than the general population median. In modern times, not always even enough for one to have a family. Certainly not for a CF patient whose life quality is usually low and the difficulties he/she have to face on daily basis are huge. Also at adulthood many CF patients have to undergo lungs transplant -so, again, it's realy not about Eugenics. You are right that females with CF are fertile-but you probably understand that raising a child, having a pregnancy and finding a mate are all much much harder and even dangerous for her. Anyway, Dor Yesharim are more into diagnosing risky genetics in a couple, and not into selection of "good" or "bad" zygotes.--Gilisa (talk) 18:18, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I make no claim for whether it is or is not eugenics: I was merely pointing out where you were factually incorrect, since this is a reference desk and we are here to reduce misinformation, not increase it. I fail to see the relevance of lung transplants. I know several young people with cystic fibrosis, and their quality of life is pretty decent until the downward spiral starts. Even then: you develop routines. Taking (the right amount of) enzymes before eating for a week is a daily difficulty: taking enzymes before you eat for your entire life is just part of what you do, like laying the table. 86.142.224.156 (talk) 02:01, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Rereading, I see you may have misunderstood what I said about life expectancy. 34 is the lowest the life expectancy has probably been during the entire existence of the Dor Yesharim. Right now, the median life in America is 37. That is, of all the people with CF currently alive, half are expected to be dead by age 37, and half are expected to live longer than that. But those people who die this year, age 37, were born 37 years ago (1972). And many will live much longer than that. We have been making progress since 1972 with physical therapy and infection control and so on. So children with CF today do not have a life expectancy of 34 or 37: rather, they have a good chance at matching the rest of the population. 86.142.224.156 (talk) 02:27, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
One apparent possibility -- The region consists of the Antilles, divided into the larger Greater Antilles which bound the sea on the north and the Lesser Antilles on the south and east (including the Leeward Antilles), and the Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, which are in fact in the Atlantic Ocean north of Cuba, not in the Caribbean Sea. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 03:16, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The article does seem particularly confusing here. Lesser Antilles says that there are three groupings - the Bahamas, including the Turks and Caicos, the Greater Antilles and the Lesser Antilles. Sounds like it would be a nice little project for someone to clean this up. DJ Clayworth (talk) 16:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
NPOV analysis of US federal legislation
I am getting rather tired of hearing the Democrats lying about the Republican motions and the Republicans lying about the Democrat motions, and I really have no clue who to trust. Does anybody have knowledge of a good NPOV organization that condenses and summarized senate and house bills? Thanks, Falconusptc03:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I know that when humans are involved, there is no NPOV, but we can come a lot closer than "Obama's healthcare program is going to fail because he *gasp* bowed to world leaders" and "That didn't work because Bush is stupid." Falconusptc03:32, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Remember this is not legal advice and we are not qualified to offer legal services. American law of wills, trusts, and estates varies of each state to the next. However, as a generalization, state law typically permits you to leave money to your pet after your death via a will or a trust. (See trust law.) The law governing such matters consists in large part of case law in which courts interpret common law principles or statutes as applicable and permit trustees or executors to use the money to care for the pet. --71.111.194.50 (talk) 03:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I think, perhaps, it might be wise to distinguish between money to a pet and money for a pet. I can't say any more without giving legal advice, but I don't think it's every come to court over enforcement. - Jarry1250[Humorous? Discuss.]17:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, pets have no right to own anything under US law. That's why the bucks are placed in trusts to care for the pets, rather than left to the pet per se. - Nunh-huh01:25, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Copyrighted US state laws?
Idaho claims copyright on its laws, as seen in § 9-350 of the Idaho Code. I was always under the impression that Wheaton v. Peters ruled that all laws were public domain in the USA; am I wrong, or is the state making an illegitimate claim? Please don't take this as a legal-advice request; I have no more reason to copy the Idaho Code than I do to copy my local telephone book. Nyttend (talk) 04:06, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Being not a lawyer, I have no specific insight other than to note that the best practice is to always assume that, unless you have direct proof to the contrary, that everything is copyright, and that the holder of that copyright has not given permission to use it. The U.S. government has released most federal works into the public domain, some stuff has "aged out" and is old enough to have passed into the public domain, and there are other well-publicized exceptions, but if it is not explicitly stated anywhere that something is free to use, best practice is to assume that it is not. --Jayron3204:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
My point is that I thought all state laws were rendered uncopyrightable by this decision, and that it was thus the proof that you require. I'm not surprised that Idaho has decided to do differently than Minnesota, which apparently releases almost as much content into the public domain as does the federal government. Nyttend (talk) 06:17, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is curious. Reading Wheaton v. Peters, I get the feeling our article on U.S. copyright law may be mistaken on this subject. Or at least it may be perpetuating a misreading of Wheaton. However, I am not a lawyer. I will take this up on the discusion page there.
As to the question itself, I would point out that the state of Idaho is, wisely, not here trying to prevent the free dissemination of the law, which it has no right to do, but only claiming the right to royalties if anyone publishes its statutes for commercial advantage. (That's obviously why they put the word "taxpayer" there.) Posting them on your personal website or handing out photocopies would then be OK (so long as you don't have paid advertisements on your website), maybe even publishing them as a book if you sold it at cost.
So while it seems to be pretty well established that no public body can prevent anyone from copying the law, doing so for profit might arguably be a different matter. Or then again it might not. As I said, IANAL.--Rallette (talk) 08:53, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Hmm, I guess I should have said Howell v Miller, which is discussed by the article Rallette cites. I always assumed that the Court had ruled that laws were unable to be copyrighted, and as there's no right to require a royalty for something in the public domain, my assumption would mean that Idaho was illegitimately making this claim; since I would be rather surprised to see a legislature make such an error, that's why I asked here in the first place. Nyttend (talk) 15:25, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
State legislatures make laws which are in direct conflict with federal laws all the time. Consider California's medical marijuana laws. They basically make legal what the federal government defines as illegal, and has (until a recent decision by the Obama administration) caused a major pissing contest between the Feds and the state of California. Its a jurisdictional issue; if it ever came before a court it would come down to whether or not the federal government had the right to tell the state if its laws were or were not copyright. So, the U.S. government may have passed a law or seen a court case which states that states could not copyright their laws, that would in no way prevent the state of Idaho from passing a conflicting law which said, essentially "Screw you feds, we'll do what we want". The states do this sort of stuff all the time. --Jayron3221:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry i didnt realise that i had to show evidence that id tryed to answer the question myself so far i have: Literature Oriental revival. Architecture Classical revival (continuation) a brief Greek Revival and the Queen Ann revival. In art the pre- Raphalites. I was only wondering if id missed anything major? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.35.57 (talk) 13:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As well as the Gothic Revival there was a wider revival of interest in medievalism.[29][30][31] Writers such as Tennyson and artists such as the Preraphaelites produced works based on Arthurian romance, for instance. There was renewed interest in Scottish history and culture, from Walter Scott in the early 19th century onwards (Tartan#Royal_patronage_and_the_tartan_craze has a little information). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.172.19.20 (talk) 17:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
(ec) He's referring to the Jacksonian era, e.g. politics in the U.S. from the 1820s to the 1840s. It's a rather obscure way to characterize a form of discourse, IMO. It seems like an idiosyncratic thing—easier to just say excessively polemical. --Mr.98 (talk) 17:08, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please indulge my speculation for a moment (naturalistic view of monotheism)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.A summary of the conclusions reached follows.
I apologize in advance if anyone is offended by my question, which is a bit long. I'm seeking a naturalistic explanation for the huge success of monotheism in the past two millenia, one that does not depend on its truth.
I have heard several explanations for the unparalleled success of the Abrahamic religions. It is easier to explain for the period since colonialism, in which superior technology made conflicts rather asymmetric. I am also much more ignorant of Islam, and will therefore focus primarily on Christianity.
First, monotheism is inherently less tolerant of rival philosophies. While a city-state supposedly protected by a pagan god will not wish for its enemies to pray to the same god, a kingdom under God cannot be happy with others praying to false gods--the success of the meme takes priority over that of its hosts! Similarly, while Pan followers would still pray to Athena on occasion, a Christian convert would no longer contribute to any temple, because God provides a one-stop shop for all your praying needs. Indeed, the Christian would be offended by the existence of all Roman temples.
Second, while the center of Roman worship took place in individual dwellings, early Christians began holding services in congregations. When the Roman empire declined, this social cohesion and organization gave them a significant advantage. Even today, religion thrives in America but not as much in western Europe partly because socialism provides a safety net that is lacking on this side of the Atlantic Ocean, a niche that religion has made its own. (For the same reason, I am alarmed by the expansion of faith-based initiatives by President Obama.)
Third, while Christianity and Buddhism preach a message of peace today, they are both evangelical offshoots of their predecessors, having achieved their geographic coverage through might and indoctrination. Persecution of infidels persisted for over a millenium in Europe, coinciding with a total retreat from scientific inquiry. The Romans loved their gods, too, but only for selfish reasons. Their lives were not as guided by religious principles.
Finally, while Romans easily abandoned their gods when their prayers were not answered, Christianity came up with two brilliant ideas--the ineffable will of their god precludes the question of unanswered prayers, while the promises of the afterlife replaced promises that would have had to be met in this one. Blame the user for product failure--the Church no longer had to solve any problems it did not wish to solve. 66.65.141.221 (talk) 16:50, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I saw the history, but as those edits are 5 years old I figure the IP has probably been reallocated since then. :) I contemplated removing this question as a) it's not a question and b) wp:soap, but I thought I'd leave it for wiser heads to decide on. FiggyBee (talk) 17:31, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Where did you somehow get the idea that pagan Romans prayed only in "private dwellings"?? In Imperial times, huge temples were located on the Capitoline hill, and the Pantheon building is a Roman temple whose basic structure has survived to the present day. Almost all Roman public civic functions and ceremonies had some degree of religious involvement. Furthermore it's quite untrue that Christianity initially spread through "might" -- for about two and a half centuries before Constantine, Christianity gained most acceptance among the lower classes and slaves of the cities of the Roman empire, and certainly was not endorsed by the government of the empire. AnonMoos (talk) 18:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Ok, how about this. You may have heard the phrase, "Keep it simple, stupid". Well, monotheism keeps it as simple as possible. It's so much easier to appease one God than a whole pantheon. Vranak (talk) 18:51, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Of all the things that could be said about religion, the notion that it is something in disguise is probably the most important. Essentially, it is the chatter of sick herd animals but it presents itself as something worth emulating. And why not? If everyone is sick, then no one is sick! Genius logic, but doomed to fail because truth is beauty, and lies are grotesque. Vranak (talk) 19:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Monotheism would tend to include more of the quality of intolerance, regarding itself, than polytheism, due to the fact that when you have the "one true G-d" embodied in your religion it's hard to allow for any other (G-d). Polytheism on the other hand does not put all its eggs in one basket so to speak. Polytheists can allow for variations in the panoply of gods that another group may hold as supreme. Bus stop (talk) 19:10, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm sorry to have forgotten to include one last sentence in my OP, namely, "What do you think?" And no, I have no interest in the Olsens, but thanks for the ad hominem. 66.65.141.221 (talk) 19:52, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a reference desk. You should ask a question. As it says at the top "Do not start a debate; please seek an internet forum instead." Dmcq (talk) 19:59, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
With a modicum of good faith, his question is readily discernible: I'm seeking a naturalistic explanation for the huge success of monotheism in the past two millenia. Vranak (talk) 20:47, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Are you saying I am not acting in good faith if I don't make up my own question from from this poster said but point them to what the guidelines say? Dmcq (talk) 21:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I'm saying that is was not difficult for me to glean the gist of the original poster's question. Perhaps I mispoke to suggest it could, should, or ought to be easy for anyone else... so I apologize. Vranak (talk) 21:49, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
Try something more fact based like is there a scientific explanation for the success of monotheistic religions compared to others? Asking for peoples thoughts or opinions is a no no. Dmcq (talk) 00:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Right. Looking at the responses so far I think I've upset enough people. I thought Wikipedia was a place where people could ask questions. Guess not. 66.65.141.221 (talk) 05:21, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
naturalistic explanation for the huge success of monotheism in the past two millenia...focus primarily on Christianity--simply, Christianity happened to thrive in the region where myriad other factors came together to propel the region to global dominance (for more on that see Guns, Germs and Steel). Don't confuse causation with correlation. Christianity rode to dominance on the coat-tails of other factors. Pfly (talk) 10:35, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
That was Theodosius. Constantine just decided to stop persecuting them. (And there was one emperor in between, Julian, who was still anti-Christian.) Adam Bishop (talk) 02:50, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Perhaps you mean to ask about the U.S. federal government funding only a small percentage of special education. Most K-12 education funding in the U.S. is provided by local property taxes, not federal grants. Local government but still government. 75.41.110.200 (talk) 18:21, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Mostly paying for the staff required. Some small amount of money also goes into specialty supplies if needed, but in K-12 public education most of the special ed budget (and funds) goes right into paying for staff (who don't get paid enough as it is). 206.131.39.6 (talk) 18:37, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Funds for transportation usually come out of a specific transportation budget regardless of any special status. This may vary based on school district though, and the yearly budget report the district releases should give you more specific information about your area as well as where your tax money is going. 206.131.39.6 (talk) 18:59, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
What is the best book on Alexander the great?
Is there one book that is considered the end all cap on the subject or are there several I should look for? I am particularly interested in his defeat of the Persian empire, his move to India, and how much Persian culture he brought with him. --Ghostexorcist (talk) 18:42, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Begin with Robin Lane Fox, Alexander the Great (in paperback). Follow with the exhibition catalog The Search for Alexander (buy it on ebay).--Wetman (talk) 21:00, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Information about the buyer and the sale price are being kept secret, according to CNN. Also, note that when the auction took place, it was not known that the fingers were Galileo's. --M@rēino20:15, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I've never picked up anything by Frank Herbert myself, but after reading the article on Dune, it sounds like at least some people have held it in quite high regard. Vranak (talk) 21:46, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It was in 1948. Perry Rhodan was the first man on the moon, back in 1971 - that does not convert its genre from SF to a historical novel ;-). --22:41, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
There is nothing in the definition of science fiction that means it has to be futuristic. Science fiction gets pigeon-holed with all sorts of ridiculous definitions (e.g., "It's about rockets and aliens" - rubbish). Some great Science fiction is set in the past, and has little to do with futuristic technologies or ideas: Harry Harrison's "A transatlantic tunnel, hurrah!" is one such example. Not that I'd class it as high literature. As to science fiction that is "high literature", sf tends to get a bad rap from the literati in general - a lot of it is fine writing that can be both entertaining and cerebral whilst simultaneously being writing of the highest calibre. How about "Brave New World"? Maybe even Le Guin's "Always Coming Home"? Or Brunner's "Stand on Zanzibar"? I'd also class several of the novels of Gene Wolfe as being highly literate to the point where they could be classed as literature in this more academic sense. And, though she always profusely denies her work is science fiction with meaningless comments like (paraphrasing) "my work can't be science fiction, it doesn't feature alien flying squid", Margaret Atwood is regarded within science fictional circles as being clearly an author of sf literature - "The Handmaid's Tale" is a prime example of literate sf. As far as I know it's the only novel ever to be nominated for both the Nebula Award and the Booker Prize. Grutness...wha?23:45, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you include 1984 and Brave New World, you have to include Zamyatin's We, which influenced them both heavily. If you count any dystopia as SF, then Nabokov's Bend Sinister would count. Also several works by Kurt Vonnegut could be described as science fiction. Slaughterhouse Five would be the main example. Staecker (talk) 23:36, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks. Do any of these books appear in the various lists of the greatest ever novels please? That would mean they were definately regarded as literature rather than just being popular. My purely personal subjective feelings: I found Dune a long tedious slog. Similarly with A Canticle for Leibowitz. I don't know what people see in William Gibson, as he seems just average to me. Its a pity that The Master and Margarita cannot be considered science-fiction. 92.24.170.160 (talk) 20:24, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Frankenstein, often considered the first science fiction novel, is also a bit of a staple for college classes in Romantic literature. It is by all accounts a great work of literature. Wrad (talk) 20:53, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
In the Elpida Memory article, it is mentioned that the US fined an overseas cartel. How can it do this, since presumably the cartel occurred outside US territory? How can it in terms of international law, and how can it in terms of collecting the money? I've noticed that the US often seems to take action against overseas companies it does not like, even though they are outside US territory. I find this rather puzzling - how can the US apply its laws to entities in a different country that has its own laws? 84.13.162.136 (talk) 22:07, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Countries can decide for themselves when they do and do not have jurisdiction. Some countries claim jurisdiction over crimes committed absolutely anywhere (universal jurisdiction). The real issue is whether or not they can enforce their judgements. Elpida's website shows they have several offices in the US. Those assets could be seized if they refused to pay. The same is true of other multinationals - they will have assets in the US, which means US judgements can be effectively enforced against them. --Tango (talk) 22:22, 23 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
So some nation for example Ruritania could have a law saying that reading a book on the second thursday of the month was a crime with a mandatory death penalty, and then prosecute Joe Bloggs who is not a Ruritanian citizen and has never been to Ruritania for that crime. Great! 92.24.40.108 (talk) 11:47, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, but provided that all other countries thought this stupid, the only consequence for Joe would be that he could never go to Ruritania, which he probably wouldn't want to anyway with those stupid laws. Though some countries snatch people from other countries to prosecute or judge them, the US does this with terrorists for example. Jørgen (talk) 11:57, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
For suitably flexible definitions of "terrorist" that includes "people with funny names" and "prosecute or judge" that includes throwing them into a dark hole with no access to lawyers or judges for months, taking them out only for the occasional "enhanced interrogation" sessions and a bit of arbitrary abuse. --Stephan Schulz (talk) 14:23, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I fully agree, but for the record, no support for US policies should be implied by my comment above. The reason I did not put "terrorist" in quotes was precisely in order not to start a debate. Jørgen (talk) 20:54, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
More controversial perhaps Mordechai Vanunu who was an Israeli citizen kidnapped in a foreign country for a crime originating from stuff he learnt while working in an Israeli government facilitiy. On the foreign citizen, crime committed overseas thing, there is the in/famous case of Dmitry Sklyarov. Of course a number of countries to prosecute their citizens for crimeds committed overseas notabily when it comes to child molestation/rape Nil Einne (talk) 23:33, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I wonder what happens regarding activities that are legal in one country but illegal in the US? For example online gambling - legal in the UK, illegal (as far as I understand) in the US. Will the US start prosecuting UK gambling companies? 92.24.170.160 (talk) 21:29, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Actually that's already happened to some extent. See Online gambling#United States. AFAIK these have concentrated on people alleged to have allowed Americans to gamble rather then just any gambling company. Of course there's also the controversial SAFE Port Act which attempts to stop the flow of money. Since US residents banks, credit cards etc are usually in the US it's likely to be resonable effective and had a catastrophic effect on online gambling companies [34]Nil Einne (talk) 23:45, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
To me it's seem very simple-if person/cartel or anything else have operate against certain country then it have all rights to operate against these people/organisations. The question whether other countries have the right to become involved is much coplex however.--Gilisa (talk) 14:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
November 24
Old "high-tech" font
There's a set of related fonts/typefaces that were apparently deemed futuristic or at least high-tech at one time. They were used for things related to computers and robots, particularly (I think) in the context of science fiction. These days, I think they're probably only found when someone is trying to be deliberately retro. Here's an example. What exactly would you call this style of font? And what exactly are its origins? (I get the impression that it's supposed to look like some sort of computer or calculator display, but I couldn't actually say I've ever seen a device that produces text like that. Were there some? If so, why? Something to do with readability on a computer screen?)
Just as an interesting side point, as well as the MICR font that the sign is parodying, there also used
to be special fonts designed for easy optical character recognition. Today's computers can do a
half-decent job of interpreting printed text in typical book fonts, but it was not always so. Text that
was meant to be printed and later to be OCR'd would be written in very simple fonts like OCR-A
or OCR-B.
I once read a delightful book called "Travels in Computerland" by Ben Ross Schneider Jr.
He was a professor of English who frequently used an 11-volume reference book about all the plays
performed in London over a 140-year period, and he had the idea that the whole content of the book
should be put online, for reasons that should be obvious to anyone reading this today. But this
was about 1970 and the whole idea was a novelty.
One of the major problems was the data entry, which had to be done accurately yet at minimum cost.
If I recall correctly, the solution eventually adopted was like this. Schneider marked up copies of
the original books by hand, with symbols meaning things like "cast member's name". The marked pages
were sent to a company in some cheap-labor location like Hong Kong and given to a group of typists.
They retyped the entire text and, following instructions prepared by Schneider, inserted codes like
"@C" to represent his symbols. This typing was all done using IBM Selectric typewriters with an
OCR-A or OCR-B typeball. The typewritten pages were then sent to another company in another country,
where they were scanned and OCRd and the content put on magtape. The tapes were sent back to
Schneider's university, where the text went onto the computer and the markup codes were interpreted.
(Somewhere in there there was a proofreading step, but I forget the details.)
The wonders of modern technology!
(The database he created from the book was called the "London Stage Information Bank". I don't know
what's become of it now. Google searches for that name turn up things written about it in the 1970s
and 1980s, but nothing that looks current.)
--Anonymous, 05:44 UTC, November 24, 2009.
That reminds me of companies who scanned all of the UK telephone directories in the same manner onto a CD. In the days when most people listed themselves in the telephone directory. 92.24.170.160 (talk) 21:32, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Please help me place these two scenarios from works (probably fiction) whose titles elude me:
A man adrift at sea, wearing a life vest, who is so savagely and relentlessly attacked by seabirds that he loosens the vest's buckles and drowns himself.
A ship adrift, all aboard having gone blind from some rampant disease.
I am not certain if this [35] is a fictional story, blog or otherwise, but it contains a short description of a slave ship where the entire crew has gone blind. cheers, 10draftsdeep (talk) 16:47, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
At this Project Gutenberg site [36], there is a copy of Anti-Slavery Poems I. from Volume III., the Works of Whittier: Anti-Slavery Poems and Songs of Labor and Reform by Whittier. The section entitled “The Slave Ships” begins with a two-paragraph description of the ships Rodeur and Leon and the blindness that struck their crews. It purports to be from the speech of M. Benjamin Constant, in the French Chamber of Deputies, June 17, 1820. It is followed by a further paragraph stating that one man on the Leon escaped the disease and brough his ship to port, only to catch the malady some three days after reaching shore. This bit of information is said to come from the Bibliotheque Ophthalmologique for November, 1819. Bielle (talk) 19:39, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
1.This city was built after devastation caused by a major war
2. In a short span of few years it overtook economically and functionally another port city (harbor) very near to it on soiteast side
Looking for place names which can fit above criteria.
There are two reasons why this hasn't been answered elsewhere -the first of which is the obvious one - we don't know. Oddly, there are remarkably few port cities which have older port cities to the southeast - most inhabited coastlines don't lie on that axis but are more northeast/southwest (strange, but true). Of those that do, there don't seen to be any where war played a major role in the change of status of the ports - even port cities damaged by war that lie on such a coast (e.g., Da Nang, Naples, Trieste) don't seem to have neighbours that would qualify. One that does is Houston, but -though it eventually took over from Galveston, it would hardly be considered "a short span of years".
The second reason, however, is perhaps more pertinent, even if it may not have become obvious to you - regulars at the Reference Desk are getting fed up with being bombarded by you with what seem like quiz questions rather than genuine requests for help. As such, fewer and fewer of us are willing to try to answer your puzzles. Grutness...wha?23:14, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
As fed up as some are getting, I find these mildly amusing. If Houston does not fit, then perhaps Gdynia does; it was founded as a port after WWI; it may have for a time been a more important/robust port than nearby Gdansk which suffered during WWI. Not sure, but the southeast-northwest alignment may work here, since Gdynia is southeast of Gdansk. --Jayron3203:05, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I was also thinking it might be Gdynia, which was built northwest (not southeast as Jayron wrote) of Danzig (Gdańsk) after World War I and surpassed Danzig as a seaport before World War II. But the problem is that Danzig wasn't really devastated in WWI; it was heavily damaged at the end of WWII, but that was after Gdynia had been built. The reason why Gdynia was built was that the Treaty of Versailles awarded Poland access to the Baltic Sea via the Polish Corridor, but no major port city. Danzig, which had a mixed ethnic German, Kashubian and Polish – but mostly German – population, became a free city under increasing German influence. Poland, therefore, needed its own port in its own territory. The growth of Gdynia was indeed remarkable: from a fishing village in 1920 to the largest port on the Baltic Sea in 1938. So it's a close match to OP's criteria, except for the devastation part. Or perhaps whoever wrote the quiz question, confused WWI with WWII. — Kpalion(talk)09:49, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Free money promotions by online casinos
Online casinos often make promotional offers like "Pay £100 into your account, and we will add another £100 for free". How much does the free £100 actually cost the casino, since a proportion of it (I'm not sure how much) will be lost by the gambler to the casino. Or is it really worthwhile to pay £100 for the casino to get another customer who may not be at all loyal and simply chase the next free offer? 92.24.170.160 (talk) 21:41, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If you look in the small-print of these free-offers they usually require a certain amount of gambling before you can withdraw the funds. That is to say if you put £100 in and get £100 free (so £200) you have to play a certain amount of time (with many imposing minimum odds to count towards the total) before you can withdraw. Yes, some people will walk away with a profit from this setup (I have friends who use these free-offers regularly) but many others will be £100 the worse-off for their efforts, as they lose the £100 'free' cash and the real £100 they put in. It also has the added incentive that you may choose that site as your main gambling site - thus repeat business. It's basically the same as any other sort of 'free' offer - there's a catch / incentive and whilst Loss leaders do exist in i'm not sure this will be an unprofitable foray for the gambling company. ny156uk (talk) 22:19, 24 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It has to do with a variation of the Gambler's fallacy. The basic principle is that, regardless of how much money you have, the house has more, so as time tends towards infinity, the house always wins, because the house can ride out your longest winning streak longer than YOU can ride out your longest losing streak. The house could give you £500 free for your £100 bankroll, and it would STILL probably take most of your £100 for this very reason; no matter how much cash a gambler shows up with, the majority of gamblers will lose all of the money they arrived with to gamble with. No matter what. Even for games where the house is actually at a statistical disadvantage like blackjack (where the player, playing a perfect system, actually has the edge), the house will still win in the long run because its bankroll is much larger than yours. The only system to "beat" the house, the MIT Blackjack Team, required dozens of perfectly trained players, who counted cards and played a perfect system, with a bankroll in the millions of dollars, and even individual players in that group found themselves going through losing streaks that left them hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole. Other than weird situations like that, you can be sure that a mere £200 isn't going to give the player any more "advantage" than £100 would, but if it makes more players "belly up to the table" the house stands to win a LOT more. If you have any doubt of the mathematics behind this see the results of the largest controlled active experiment in this field, aka Las Vegas. --Jayron3202:56, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
It depends how much you have to bet before you are able to withdraw the bonus money (if you ever can at all). Often it is possible to make a statistical profit, but requires many hours of perfect play on a low house edge game. Blackjack is a good choice for this, but for the record the house does have an advantage in blackjack, typically around 0.1-0.5%. Some versions of Video Poker surprisingly do work in favour of the player. Prokhorovka (talk) 10:00, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
November 25
Largest parliament buildings
I first asked this question on the Mathematics desk, as it is statistics-related, but apparently that wasn't the appropriate forum, so I am trying again here. After much searching on-line, I haven't been able to find a single list of the largest parliament buildings in the world, either by floor space or by volume, despite the fact that I have come across claims for a couple of such buildings about their relative position on such a list. I do know that the biggest (and heaviest) of them all is the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest; what I am looking for is information on at least the top-five to top-ten (and I am particularly interested in the relative position of the Palace of Westminster). If the source is reliable, that would be a much-appreciated bonus. Waltham, The Duke of03:29, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Without wanting to discourage anyone, let me point out some things that might have got in the way of assembling such a list. Most difficult is how one defines the parliament buildings so they can be fairly compared. The Palace of Westminster, as I recall, is actually a complex of buildings, as, I think, are the parliament buildings in Ottawa (Canada). What parliamentary or congressional functions would you include or exclude, after the main deliberative chamber or chambers? The Clerk's offices? The presiding officers' suites? Committee chambers? Individual members' offices (which fill several buildings on Capitol Hill in Washington)? The offices of the legislative staff, researchers and legal counsel? The suite or office reserved for the Head of State? The Gardens? The dining rooms and library?
Other problems would be: are you considering only national legislatures, or also considering state and provincial ones? And the area/volume one you alluded to: how do you want to compare high-rise with single-storey buildings?
And, as a Rhode Islander, I can sympathise with your dilemma, because the Rhode Island State House (designed by McKim, Meade and White and built in 1900) has long boasted of having the "second-largest unsupported marble dome in the world", or perhaps only the fourth-largest. This is always shaky ground to argue about because apparently no one has assembled a universally-accepted list of large marble domes by size. —— Shakescene (talk) 06:45, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
[37] (Youtube, starts at 2:00) So Apple Daily (Taiwan) and Apple Daily (Hong Kong) have this new feature where they recreate news events with some pretty realistic animation. Are there any other media organization known for doing this? I would love some links. F (talk) 07:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC) To clarify, lots of media uses animation, but I want to find ones that do it better than Apple. F (talk) 12:47, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Sure. There's a news show on one of Slovenia's stations that is known for two things - unbelievably heavy-handed use of bombastic superlatives (they would probably find a way to describe a cat being stuck in a tree as shocking or inconceivable), and ridiculously lame animations used to recreate news events when no footage is available. There was one particular animation of three almost stickman-like figures chasing a forth one, but I can't find it right now. There is some not too exciting animation in this video, at about the 0:20 mark: [38]. I'm sure there's more cases like this around the world. --TomorrowTime (talk) 10:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Newsroom computer artists like to do something different from their usual work of putting together backdrops and photo montages. Plane crashes are particularly prone to getting the animation treatment - there was a plane which ditched off Christmas Island recently that got animated on ABC, and every time I saw it it irked me that they'd used entirely the wrong type of plane! FiggyBee (talk) 16:57, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
If I understand a source correctly, St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Wapakoneta, Ohio (built in 1899) is supposedly a Romanesque church, but it looks like a Gothic Revival structure to me. Who's wrong? Nyttend (talk) 15:44, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I agree that the Romanesque label may well have been applied due to the lack of pointed arches, but in other respects it does look rather in the Gothic revival to me - compare the (original) Brick Gothic of Doberan Abbey - as the Ohio church has what appears to be a large rose window (Romanesque rose windows are uncommon and smaller), two spires (not found in the Romanesque) and is built of brick (very unusual for a Romanesque building). But many architects working in the revival styles weren't at all concerned by mixing up their styles, particularly by the end of the 19th century. Warofdreamstalk17:37, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Have you tried a bookshop? If you are asking us to identify a book from that description, it is not very much to go on. Can you tell us more about it?--Shantavira|feed me17:14, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Psychological effect I: suicide on the train track
If someone commits suicide by throwing himself in front of a train, does it traumatize the train driver for his whole life (as is generally assumed)? If yes, why is it like that? Normally, there is absolutely nothing the driver can do to stop it.ProteanEd (talk) 17:25, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know how traumatic it actually is for drivers, but I would imagine the feeling of helplessness is part of the trauma. They are seeing the horror unfold in Prokhorovka (talk) 18:19, 25 November 2009 (UTC)front of them, and they are the driver, in charge of the situation and keeping everyone safe, but they are unable to do anything.[reply]
Although I am not questioning the horror of it, why would physical or psychological torture leave a trauma for life? There are other circumstances in life that are also painful. Just imagine that a car hits you and break your leg. That's something that can happen every time again.--ProteanEd (talk) 17:34, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Have you seen the article Psychological trauma? Different people react to things in different ways, and to address your second example, many people who are involved in even quite minor car accidents have a fear of driving or traffic for years afterwards. FiggyBee (talk) 18:02, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
This is a bit of a long shot, but one never knows. (Incidentally, if this question is more appropriate for the Entertainment desk, please move it). In 1995, Alan Bennett made a documentary on Westminster Abbey ([39] on IMDb, if it helps). At one point, he mentions James VI and I's opposition to tobacco, and goes on to mention that, when the king's tomb was opened by a Dean of the Abbey in the nineteenth century, a broken clay pipe was found by the coffin, "presumably left by one of the workmen who had put it [the coffin] there.". There's a brief pause, and Bennett then recites an appropriate "Pale death with impartial foot" quotation. What I'm trying to find out is - what was that quotation? It _wasn't_ "pale death with impartial foot", if that needs saying. Does anyone else remember the documentary and the line? Tevildo (talk) 20:17, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I don't think that's entirely correct. In any case, Friedrich Ebert was Germany's Chancellor, after the fall of the Kaiser, although he never used the title. He was then elected President (but did not hold both positions at the same time). - Jarry1250[Humorous? Discuss.]20:43, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Searching for a quote on writing
Trying to remember the source (and content!) of a quote. I think it was from Annie Dillard?
The gist of it, or my recollection of it, not even close to the actual quote: Don't save up your "good ideas" for fear you'll run out. Use them and you'll get more. Store them for later, and when you try to retrieve them, they'll be gone. 198.161.238.18 (talk) 20:53, 25 November 2009 (UTC)[reply]
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